


White Flag

by Opalgirl



Category: Pierce - Tortall
Genre: Angst, Community: 31_days, F/M, Missing Scene, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-11
Updated: 2010-04-11
Packaged: 2017-10-08 21:14:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/79575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Opalgirl/pseuds/Opalgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thayet has decided to raise the white flag and move back into the royal wing, but she has her terms.</p>
            </blockquote>





	White Flag

Thayet sits at the dressing table and waits. She has long ago dismissed the servants and keeps her own company. The children are abed--she wandered through the nursery and the older ones' bedchambers not long ago--and sleeping. The entire wing is still, as is most of the palace, and she finds that she is glad for the quiet.

Even from her place at the dressing table in the royal wing, she can hear the cry of the sentry, announcing the hour and that all is well. It is midnight, she realizes, and she feels no concern over where her husband might be or who he might be with.

For even while she had lived separately from her husband, seldom speaking to him at all, Jonathan had not strayed from their marriage vows. In the public eye as he was, she would have heard if he had taken a mistress while she lived on the other side of the palace from him.

She hears footsteps outside, and light male laughter and the murmur of voices – Jon and Gary, undoubtedly. Footsteps fade away - Gary returning to his own suite of rooms, Cythera, and their children – and Jon opens the heavy oak door, intending to go to bed.

He stops, noticing her things back in their places, and she sees him in the mirror as he enters the dressing room. "Thayet?" he asks, quietly.  
__

_'You're being foolish,' Buri growled at her, finally, during one early morning ride, 'childish even. Gods – is it worth it?'_

Her old friend, who is perpetually single, is correct, of course. Buri is too clever to be wrong, even if the matter at hand is something she knows nothing of. And she is the only one besides Alanna (who is currently holed up at the Swoop, still furious with Jon, and determined to stay away from Corus) who will tell Thayet such things.

"Someone finally decided to tell me I was being foolish," she remarks as she rises to her feet. "They were right." Then, after a moment's consideration, she adds, "I'm still not pleased – I wanted our children to be able to pursue their dreams – but it's not worth it."

Jon extends a hand to her, and she places one of hers in it, delicately.

"I wish politics had no role in the children's future," he says softly, kissing her fingers, "but unfortunately, that is how it has to be."

"Kalasin seems to have come to terms with it," Thayet replies, meeting his gaze squarely. "Although it will be rather a long time before she forgives you fully, particularly with Page Keladry in training."

"You understand the decision, my dear?"

She nods. Of course she does. As the only child of the Wilima line, she had been a pawn in the game of politics most of her life and considered potential bride for several young royals, to strengthen her father's alliances. "I do."

Perhaps this is a beginning, a new turn of events. They seem to have resolved the worst issue of the moment.

"You couldn't have told me you were moving back in?"

She smiles, genuinely, for the first time in she doesn't know how long. "I didn't know. Buri finally had the sense to point out how foolish, how childish I was being." She sighs. "I only wanted for them to be happy, Jon. I can't think of them living out their lives in misery."

"And I intend for them to be happy," he promises, "as happy as an arranged match can be. George and Myles have agents in Carthak, observing Emperor Kaddar to gauge whether or not he will make a suitable husband for Kalasin, and so far, the reports have been positive." 

That resolves her worst fear – that her children, particularly her daughters, would find themselves married to men who would treat them poorly or ignore them. It would be difficult enough on home soil, but Jon clearly intends to marry the girls away to foreign lands.

"The stand-off has ended?" he asks, blue eyes twinkling, and she swats him.


End file.
